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Broken WindshieldHousekeeping ain't no joke. Tuesday, September 18, 2001 Jack left the house for his XP training class this morning, then came right back inside. Someone had thrown something at his windshield, and cracked it! So I gave him my car to drive, and devoted my day to household stuff. I should have made an appointment to get the glass replaced, but I'm not sure of the model or year of the car, beyond that it's a Blazer. Vacuuming, polishing the dining room table, and even polishing the new coffee table! I felt very domestic. I also spent a lot of time online, of course. And, as part of my freezer-stocking project, I made some special spaghetti sauce. The recipe comes from my high-school boyfriend's family. Ground beef, onions, mushrooms, and garlic, of course, but the tomato is mainly Campbell's tomato soup (with a small can of tomato sauce thrown in). Bay leaves are important, along with the standard oregano, basil, and such. And the liquid used to thin it down as it simmers is -- beer! This is critical. This cooked all afternoon in a large pot on the stove; I'll put it in the freezer later. I also made rice pudding! The recipe is from Lora Brody's Slow Cooker Cooking, which I renewed online from the library, yay! Arborio rice, milk, sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, cinnamon, raisins, all in the crock pot. Sweet, smooth, creamy, yum.
When Jack's daughter H--- got home from school, she put our dinner together with a minimum amount of advice from me. I did stand in the kitchen door and tell her where things were stored, if she couldn't find things. (I was shocked, shocked! when she couldn't find the recycling, which lives under the sink.) She prepared "7 happiness Beef and Rice" from Peg Bracken's I Hate to Cook Book. The name is from the seven reasons this recipe should make a cook happy. 1. it contains meat and starch, but neither need to be precooked. 2. it looks like dogfood when it goes into the oven, but doesn't when it comes out. And so on.... After this dish went into the oven, we decided to walk over to the Junction. I'm in the market for coasters, to protect the coffee table and dining table. The dining table has a sad tendency to develop white rings from drinking glasses, darn it! We looked at Jack's poor windshield on the way. Someone had indeed thrown something, probably a bottle, since we could see where the liquid had splashed around the impact point. H--- spotted some brown-orange flecks of glass, so it was probably a beer bottle. The mysterious thing is that there weren't any fragments of a broken bottle in the street or anywhere around! Did a very neat vandal come back to pick up the evidence after committing the crime? Or, more likely, maybe a neighbor did some sweeping. We didn't find coasters, but H--- did see possible gifts for her young sister at Curious Kidstuff, and cool objets d'art at the framing and gift store. "I'll be coming back here, when I've got some money," she exclaimed. I also found some hooks to go over the picture molding we have along the ceiling in our living room and dining room. I want to try to hang Jack's pictures this way. Much easier than banging holes in the walls! Oh, yeah, we'll find room for a picture or too belonging to me, I think! Jack was suitably appreciative of H----'s dinner, and I liked it too! Ground beef, uncooked rice, onion, sliced olives, tomato juice, boiling water, spread in a pan and baked for two hours. Put grated cheese on it a half hour before it's done.
I'm getting confused about when the TV season is actually going to start! I guess NBC is delayed until next week, but they are still showing promos for the Friends premiere that mention this Thursday, the day after tomorrow. When H--- and I were watching Frasier repeats, H---- doing homework the while, Jack went down to his music room and played guitar. I'm glad that he's enjoying being down there; he's played more since we moved in than in quite a while! And that way, he's not annoyed by our enjoyment of sitcoms. |
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